All posts in category Installation

I had to install a standalone instance of SQL Server 2012 [developers edition] on one of the machine. Usually the whole installation finishes within an hour or two. I started the installation process after passing all the required parameters and switched to another work [multitasking 😉 ]. It wasn’t a high priority task, so I went for lunch also. When I came back, it was almost 2 hours since the setup installation was running. To my surprise it was still running [Status bar was showing it stuck at around 30% It was stuck at Install_SqlSupport_KatmaiRTM_Cpu64_Action:CreateShortcuts. Creating shortcut]. I went through the sql server setup logs to check if there is something useful pointing to the reason behind SQL Server taking forever to finish. I checked event logs as well but to no avail.

I started my hunt for a solution to this problem on internet .

I am sharing the trick that solved the issue for me: 🙂

I cancelled the currently running installation setup.

Followed the below steps.

Open Internet Explorer

Go to Setting -> Internet Options

Open the “Advanced” Tab

Go to security sections below and uncheck the “Check for server certificate revocation” and “check for publisher certificate revocation options”

Click Apply and then OK

Close the browser and reboot the system.

After this when I re-initiated the Installation. It finished in normal time. 🙂

Step By Step (Installation)

1. Go to the Installation Setup (SQL Server 2014). Right click setup.exe and run as administrator.

2. Upon starting the installation, you will get this window. Go to the Installation tab on the left and then click “New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation.

3. Enter the product key and click Next

4. Accept the license term in order to continue.

5. It checks your machine to make sure it meets the hardware and software requirements to install SQL Server. If you get any Errors in the results, do not move to the next step.

6. Choose the first option in order to install SQL Server, and Click Next.

7. Select which features to install. I have selected only limited features (Database engine, management tolls, client tools, integration services). Click Next to continue:

8. Select Default instance and click next.

9. In this step you can select the service accounts for the SQL Server actions. Each service in SQL Server represents a process or a set of processes to manage authentication of SQL Server operations with Windows. Each service can be configured to use its own service account. Its recommended to use domain account to run sql services in production. However, i have slected local account. Click next to proceed.

10. Select collation and click next.

11. SQL Server can operate in one of two security (authentication) modes: (a) Windows Authentication mode which allowed a user to connect through an operating system user account. or (b) Mixed Mode which allowed users to connect to an instance of SQL Server using either Windows Authentication or SQL Server Authentication.

I have selected Mixed Mode and have spacified password for sa account. I have also added my account as sql server adminstrator. Click next to proceed.

12. By default SQL Server uses the system operation disk Thus it is highly recommended to use the best practice according to your specific system and usage. Separating the LOG files from the data files can improve performance significantly. The system database tempDB is used extensively by SQL Server. This database is rebuilt each time the server is restarted. It is best practice to separate data, transaction logs, and tempdb for environments where you can guarantee that separation.

As i have installing SQL on a virtual machine which has only one drive i.e C. I am going ahead with the default directory locations. Click next to proceed.

13. Review the summary of features and components for your SQL Server installation. To proceed, click Install

14. On the “Complete” page, you can view the Setup summary log by clicking the blue link provided on the bootom this page. To exit the SQL Server Installation Wizard, click Close. We have successfully installted SQL Server 2014.

Connecting to SQL Instance:

Go to the Start menu, and choose SQL Server 2014 Management Studio (SSMS), to connect to the newly created instance of SQL Server 2014

Procedure to uninstall a SQL Server failover clustered instance

To update or remove a SQL Server failover cluster, you must be a local administrator with permission to login as a service on all nodes of the failover cluster.

To remove a node from an existing SQL Server failover cluster

Insert the SQL Server installation media. From the root folder, double-click setup.exe. To install from a network share, navigate to the root folder on the share, and then double-click Setup.exe.

The Installation Wizard launches the SQL Server Installation Center. To remove a node to an existing failover cluster instance, click Maintenance in the left-hand pane, and then select Remove node from a SQL Server failover cluster.

The System Configuration Checker will run a discovery operation on your computer. To continue, Click OK. .

After you click install on the Setup Support Files page, the System Configuration Checker verifies the system state of your computer before Setup continues. After the check is complete, click Next to continue.

On the Cluster Node Configuration page, use the drop-down box to specify the name of the SQL Server failover cluster instance to be modified during this Setup operation. The node to be removed is listed in the Name of this node field.

The Ready to Remove Node page displays a tree view of options that were specified during Setup. To continue, click Remove.

Reason:

Solution:

Below is the procedure to enable .NET Framework 3.5 in Windows Server 2012

Using GUI

1. Go to Server Manager -> Manage -> Add Roles and Features

2. Click Next

3. Click Next button, the wizard will shows the Installation Type section where we have to select the Role-based or feature-based installation option that it has used to configure this server by adding roles, role services and features.

4. Click Next button, it will show the Server Selection section. Click Select a server from the server pool and over the grid, select the server

5. Click Next

6. Select the .NET Framework 3.5 Feature Checkbox and click Next.

7. Warning message informs us that for one or more installation selections are missing source files on the destination server, so we have to specify an alternative source path. Click the Specify an alternative source patch

Microsoft Cluster

A Microsoft cluster is a high-availability system designed to keep the database up as much as possible. It does this by resuming processing on the secondary server in the event of a failure on the principal server. Since the data resides on a shared disk, a Microsoft cluster will not survive a data corruption. This technology is high availability, not disaster recovery. All data resides in the same data center and on the same disk. A cluster can be used with other technologies, such as database mirroring.

In order to Install SQL Server Cluster, we need to have Windows cluster ready as a base with some other pre-requisites as well. [ Installing Windows Cluster is out of scope of this article.]

1- Windows Cluster

2- DTC

3- SQL

We then need to setup 2 Network Interfaces to be used in production and the other as a heartbeat.

3. A check will run in order to find possible constraints when installing the SQL Server Setup support files. At the end of the check, click “OK”

4. Provide product key for your media. Then Next

5. Accept License Agreement (and the other check if you would like). Then Next

6. Wait for Setup Support Rules check. Once done make sure no failed task. Evaluate warnings for your environment . Then click Next

7. click SQL Server Feature Installation and click Next.

8. Select Features to install and click NEXT. I have selected all Features.

9. Make sure feature Rule check complete with no Failed status. Then Next

10. Provide Network and Instance names. Then Next

11. Click Next

12. Click Next

13. Select Disk needed for the resource group . Then Click Next

14. Enable IP4 and provide IP address. Then Next

15. Provide Service Accounts (and Collation if different than default – SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_Cl_AS). Then Next

16. Now we need to choose the authentication mode of our instance.The options are either “Windows Authentication”, which will take benefit from domain and local server logins, or “Mixed Mode”, which accepts Domain/Windows logins as well as logins created and managed by SQL Server.If you pick “Mixed Mode” a login called “sa”, member of the “Sysadmin” role will be enabled. For this reason we need to specify the password for this login.In the box bellow, we need to add all domain/Windows users that have access to the instance and will be part of the “Sysadmin” fixed server role. You need to use the three buttons to add/remove logins from this list:

This post will serve as a step by step guide to install SQL Server 2012. Once you are ready with the OS setup and good to go for SQL Server 2012 Installation follow the below steps.

Copy the sql server 2012 setup onto the machine where you want to install it.

Right click on setup and Click Run as administrator

Go to Installation page and click on New SQL Server stand-alone installation

Setup Support Rules screen check whether all prerequisites are in place.

Click on show details to confirm all rules have passed and proceed by clicking OK. (if there are any failures then exit setup by clicking cancel and resolve the issue before running the setup again).

Setup Support Rules screen check whether all prerequisites are in place. Click Next to proceed.

In my case, I already have a named instance installed on my machine. That is why add features to an existing instance of SQL 2012 is enabled.

however, ignore this and select Perform a new installation of SQL Server 2012 and click Next

Enter the product key and click Next

Read and accept the licence Terms to proceed.

Here you have two option for installation. first is custom installation, which means you can pick and choose the features you want to install.

Second is to install all Features with Default settings. It is always recommended to install only those features which are required.

Select the features to install and click Next

Setup will run some rules to foresee any issue. Click Next once complete.

Here you have two options to select the type of instance.

Default instance or Named Instance. You can install only only one default instance but can install multiple named instances.

Review the disk space summary. It will not allow you to proceed if you don’t have enough disk space.

Select the accounts to run SQL Services and Click Next.

You can change the collation if you want. Better leave it default and click Next.

Choose the authentication mode. Recommended mode is Windows Authentication, as it is more secure. However, if business require select mixed mode. Enter Sysadmin (sa) password twice and select SQL Server admins for this instance and click Next.

Select the Data Directory. If you want you can change it to some other drive. I have left it default.

As per best practices, Data, log, tempdb and backup files should all be on separate drives.

FILESTREAM enables SQL Server-based applications to store unstructured data, such as documents and images, on the file system. If required, select this feature, else click Next to proceed.

If you have selected Analysis Services in Feature Selection page then you will get this. Specify Users to have Administrative permissions and click on Data Directories tab.

you can change the file locations if you want.

You will get this screen, if you have selected Reporting Services in Feature Selection Page. You have two options here, first to install and configure Reporting Service or Install only.

Distributed Replay feature helps you assess the impact of future SQL Server upgrades. Similar to SQL Server Profiler, you can use Distributed Replay to replay a captured trace against an upgraded test environment. Unlike SQL Server Profiler, Distributed Replay is not limited to replaying the workload from a single computer.

Specify users who will have permissions for Distributed Replay controller service. Group accounts are not support. If you enter group account, it will throw validation error as below.

Specify controller name and click Next.

If you want to send windows and SQL Server Error reports to MS then click on check box and click Next.

Click on Install button to start Installation.

After a successful installation, the screen should be all green (as below).

Now you have successfully installed SQL Server 2012. Open the management studio to check.

When an instance of SQL Server is configured for HA like Cluster, then it is important to install service packs (hot fixes) in proper sequence.

Installing Service Pack SQL Server 2008/R2 in failover cluster is very different than the SQL Server 2005 cluster failover.

With SQL Server 2005, install service pack (or hotfix) on the active node and the Setup will launch simultaneously “remote silence” on all passive nodes. All nodes in the cluster containing the SQL Server instance are updated in the same time.

With SQL Server 2008, to reduce the downtime, the method of deployment is changed.

Microsoft Cluster

A Microsoft cluster is a high-availability system designed to keep the database up as much as possible. It does this by resuming processing on the secondary server in the event of a failure on the principal server. Since the data resides on a shared disk, a Microsoft cluster will not survive a data corruption. This technology is high availability, not disaster recovery. All data resides in the same data center and on the same disk. A cluster can be used with other technologies, such as database mirroring.

Below is the SQL Cluster Architechture:

In order to Install SQL Server Cluster, we need to have Windows cluster ready as a base with some other pre-requisites as well. [ Installing Windows Cluster is out of scope of this article.]

1- Windows Cluster

2- DTC

3- SQL

Below IPs needs to be reserved well in advance to save yourself some time. IP Addresses and Hostnames can be of your choice.

We then need to setup 2 Network Interfaces to be used in production and the other as a heartbeat.

5. In the License Terms dialog box, click the I accept the license terms check box and click Next.

6. In the Setup Support Rules dialog box, click Install. Validate that the checks return successful results. If the checks returned a few warnings, make sure you fix them before proceeding with the installation.

7. Select the features to install and click Next.

8. Configure the Network Name ( this is going to be the DB cluster name ) and instances

9. In the Disk Space Requirements dialog box, check that you have enough space on your local disks to install the SQL Server binaries and click Next.

10. Choose your Cluster Resource Group ( or leave to default )

11. In the Cluster Disk Selection dialog box, select the available disk groups that are on the cluster for SQL Server to use.

13. In the Cluster Security Policy dialog box, accept the default value of Use service SIDs (recommended).

14. In the Server Configuration dialog box, enter the credentials that you will use for your SQL Server service accounts in the Service Accounts tab. Configure the Service accounts Users and Password as per best practices.

15. Select the appropriate Authentication Mode. If you want to add the currently logged on user to be a part of the SQL Server administrators group, click the Add Current User button.

16. On the Data Directories tab, enter the path where your system and user database files will be created.

17. Install, But do not configure is the only option available as we haven’t installed the pre-requisites for Reporting Service.

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Disclaimer

This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here are my own and not of my employer. For accuracy and official references refer to MSDN, Microsoft TechNet, Books Online. I or my employer do not endorse any of the tools / applications / books / concepts mentioned here on my blog. I have simply documented my personal experiences on this blog.